How Wild are These Houses?

Have you ever dreamed of living inside a cloud? Or of snuggling up, at the end of a long hard day, into your snug-as-a-bug home shaped like the shell of a snail?

Or have you had nightmares about living in an all-glass house, where everybody passing by can see everything you do?

Then don't miss 'Going Wild!,' this sneak preview of the winter 2014 issue of CA-Modern magazine.

Modern architects, obsessed as they are with form following function, have often enjoyed creating homes that seem more about fantasy.

Here are a dozen of the most fantastic, ranging from a Palm Springs classic by John Lautner to the Cloud House, a curvaceous construction that floated into sight two years ago in Melbourne.

These are special houses indeed. Architect Javier Senosiain describes his snail-like Nautilus House as “a fluid space in three dimensions where you can perceive the continuous dynamic of the fourth dimension as you walk in spiral on the stairs.”

As for that glass house on a crowded street in Tokyo—it does come with curtains.